Vibro-electrical performance of nickel-clustered monocrystalline-silicon photovoltaic cells: A data-informed analytical modal study

Dynamic mechanical loading can initiate cracks, interconnect damage, and power loss in crystalline-silicon photovoltaic assemblies, yet the local vibration consequences of metallic impurity clusters inside a cell remain poorly quantified. This study combines previously published electrical and microstructural measurements for nickel-clustered monocrystalline-silicon cells [7] with a reproducible plate-vibration model. The records cover 600-1100 ℃ additional annealing, reported cluster-size intervals of 1-30 µm, open-circuit voltages of 480-506 mV, and short-circuit current densities of 20.2-45.7 mA cm-2. A 10 × 5 × 0.38 mm coupon was represented as a simply supported Kirchhoff-Love plate, with the unreported crystal orientation bracketed by silicon Young's moduli of 130-169 GPa. An independent Mindlin-Reissner eigenvalue calculation, including transverse shear and rotary inertia, predicted a first frequency 1.26% below the Kirchhoff-Love value. Pure-Ni inclusions and Reuss-Voigt stiffness bounds were retained as a conservative homogenization envelope. The Kirchhoff-Love first local bending frequency was 67.05-76.45 kHz. For the 900 ℃ condition with the highest UocJsc proxy calculated from the published data, the proxy was 2.190 times the control value, while the model predicted a first-mode shift of -0.0037% to -0.0040% for the midpoint morphology and -0.0006% to -0.0127% across its stated lower-upper morphology bounds. The maximum predicted reduction over the full feasible morphology domain was 3.051%. These calculations predict a small coupon-level modal effect under the stated geometry, support, and homogenization assumptions; they do not constitute experimental evidence of modal performance, fatigue resistance, or module-level vibration reliability.